James Idell

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss, Historian November 30, 2016

James Idell

Mr. Idell retired in 2007 as a Senior Vice-President of Corporate Development after 30 years with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). For the last 21 of those years, he reported directly to the CEO and was responsible for keeping track of business development throughout the corporation and for organizational development and change. Prior to that, he served in various capacities, as a Group level business development lead, senior program manager, and system engineer.

Prior to joining SAIC, Mr. Idell worked as a systems analyst for Systems Development Corporation and 4 years as an Air Force project engineer with the Air Force Satellite Control Facility. Mr. Idell graduated with a BS and an MSEE from Cornell University in 1972.

THE SAN DIEGO TECHNOLOGY ARCHIVE

INTERVIEWEE: James Idell

INTERVIEWER: Helen Weiss, Historian

DATE: November 30, 2016

1 WEISS: I'm Helen Weiss for the San Diego Technology Archive housed at the 2 Special Collections at the UC San Diego Geisel Library. I'm interviewing Mr. James 3 Idell on November 30, 2016 in the Geisel Library. Mr. Idell joined SAIC in 1977 and 4 served in various capacities as a group level business develop lead, senior program 5 manager and system engineer before becoming senior vice president of corporate 6 development. When he retired in 2007, he had served for 21 years in this capacity 7 where he was responsible for keeping track of business development throughout the 8 corporation and for organizational development and change as SAIC expanded its 9 scope and workforce.

10 Thank you, Mr. Idell, for making time for this oral history interview. We'll be 11 walking through your background, education and then find out about your 12 experiences at SAIC especially here in San Diego. So tell me about your background 13 before you joined SAIC. Where did you grow up?

14 IDELL: I grew up outside of Boston – my whole family is still back there – in the 15 town of Wellesley, Massachusetts. I went to Cornell University undergraduate and 16 then one year of graduate school. I got my master's in electrical engineering with a 17 specialization in information theory.

18 After leaving the graduate program, I spent four years in the Air Force. I had joined 19 an Air Force ROTC detachment after my junior year at Cornell because my draft 20 number was four and it was a way to go to grad school in the era of the Vietnam War 21 and the draft. I had an opportunity with the Air Force to come to Southern 22 California and worked as a project engineer for the Air Force Satellite Control 23 Facility working on upgrade projects to ground data processing and telemetry 24 support systems for both Air Force and classified satellites. In 1976 I left the Air 25 Force. I spent a year with System Development Corporation in Santa Monica doing 26 systems analysis work on various largely government contracts. Wasn't particularly 27 happy there.

28 Through a friend – we were on an outing one day – and I was complaining about my 29 job. He said, "Well my neighbor works for this company called Science Applications, 30 SAI, and he's looking for somebody with just your background." So through my 31 friend, I met Don McPherson who was a division manager in El Segundo, a small 32 office at SAI and within a month I had hired on. So that was January of '77. The 33 company, at that time, had just finished a year of $44 million in annual revenues. 34 Had about 1,400 employees.

35 My employee number was in the 2,600s which were consecutively given. When I 36 retired there were well over 150,000 numbers used and the company had grown to 37 $10 billion annual revenue and over 44,000 employees worldwide. So my time at 38 SAIC saw great growth, great change, and great opportunity. Joining SAIC turned 39 out to be a life-changing decision.

40 WEISS: So before we move into your life at SAIC, tell me a little bit about the 41 System Development Corporation. I understand that it was founded in 1955 in Santa 42 Monica and was the first computer software company in the U.S. Tell me about that 43 whole experience and also how your Air Force background transitioned to help you 44 with what you were doing at that company.

45 IDELL: I was responsible for contracts that the Air Force had to upgrade ground 46 data processing systems both for real time control and telemetry support systems for 47 satellites. I was recruited by SDC through contacts that I had made as an Air Force 48 officer and went to work on a program with the Defense Meteorological Satellite 49 Program in Omaha, Nebraska looking at future upgrades to their support systems. 50 So it was similar work from a contractor basis to a different Air Force organization 51 than one I had worked on as a blue-suiter.

52 WEISS: As a blue-suiter – where were you actually trained and did you see any 53 overseas posts?

54 IDELL: I was what they used to call a Hollywood Solider. My entire four years were 55 spent in El Segundo, California living on the beach at Manhattan and Hermosa 56 Beach. L.A. Air Force station is really an office park and has, other than the gym and 57 the exchange, few of the trappings of a military base. So my hair was always just a

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 58 little bit too long. I lived the life of a commuter who had an engineering job. I 59 traveled as part of my job probably once or twice a month to Sunnyvale, California 60 where the Satellite Control Facility’s principal operating location was but never other 61 than temporary duty never had any overseas commitments or responsibilities. I also 62 traveled back to Washington on occasion.

63 WEISS: So you left Systems Development Corporation, got hired on to SAIC. When 64 did you first meet Dr. Beyster? I understand he was an excellent recruiter himself, 65 but you were then recruited through somebody else.

66 IDELL: I was, but Bob's recruiting skills had more to do with me staying in the 67 company. As I said, through a friend, I met a man who had some contracts and 68 needed help and I fit right in. I hired on and was working. I met Bob probably within 69 a year of being hired. So in my mind, I was a fairly junior employee.

70 In '77, I would have been 28, 29 rather, but I took responsibility for a contract that 71 had some growth potential with the Air Force Space Division. Bob, at that time, was 72 the chief business development officer of the company, informally. He took an 73 interest in and traveled extensively to the various operating locations of the 74 company and really wanted to meet the young people who were in charge of and 75 who had the technical knowledge that were the guts of our support to important 76 contractors. Through his normal travels to the various locations, he met me because 77 the contract that I was responsible for had some growth potential.

78 He knew of me and he used to truly enjoy meeting the young technical people and 79 program management people that were in the company, because he wanted to get 80 their ideas. He wanted to see who was smart, who was contributing in the long run. 81 At that time the company was sized so that he could take an interest in every 82 operation and wanted to meet personally ever key person in the company. A tall 83 order even then but it was something that he endeavored to do.

84 WEISS: So you were based in the Santa Monica area?

85 IDELL: When I worked [for SDC]. SAIC, when I hired on to them, had an office in 86 El Segundo, California right down the road from Air Force Base Division. Had maybe 87 40-45 people total in that office spread between a couple different SAIC divisions.

88 WEISS: When did you come to San Diego for SAIC?

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 89 IDELL: I will get to the recruiting part directly as it affected me. Two years into 90 SAIC, I was fairly ambitious at the time. I was doing well at SAIC, but I had some 91 friends who worked for Control Data Corporation, CDC. Back in the late '70s, they 92 were industry leaders in super computing and also had classified technology for 93 high-powered onboard spacecraft computers. They recruited me to come to the Bay 94 area and be a salesman for the Air Force because of my background with classified 95 space programs and my data processing information theory background. They had a 96 very small group of people that supported the classified community and interfaced 97 for the various products and research activities that CDC was involved in. It would 98 have been a big pay jump for me and was exciting at the time to be back working 99 with the classified community.

100 So I told my immediate boss in El Segundo that I had taken this job. He said, "Oh my 101 goodness. Good luck." He happened to tell his boss, the operations manager in San 102 Diego and he said, "Well good luck." He told the group manager that I worked under 103 at the time who was a fellow named Gene Ray. Gene said, "Wait a second."

104 He sent me out to Dayton to meet a business development individual named Bill 105 Hall who was working in the classified community and brought me down to La Jolla 106 and said, "No, you're not leaving the company. First of all, I want you to sit down 107 with Dr. Beyster." I had met Gene through program reviews. So he was somebody I 108 knew but not well. I had met Bob one or two times. This was back in La Jolla in the 109 1200 Prospect Building.

110 They brought me up to the fourth-floor corner office and I was ushered in to see 111 Bob. We sat down. Before we really could get started, his administrator walked in 112 with a very officious air and gave Bob a pamphlet and just said, "Excuse me, Mr. 113 Idell. Dr. Beyster, you really have to look at this and sign this correspondence. It's 114 very important." So he said, "Excuse me."

115 Helen, Bob’s administrator, left the room. He opens the folder and said, "Really, this 116 has got nothing to do with any [correspondence]. This is a memo from Gene telling 117 me what I'm supposed to say to keep you in the company." So this was typical of 118 Bob's disarming, informal interactions – I mean he was recruiting me at the time. He 119 said, "Well if you want to work in the classified community, we can make that 120 happen."

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 121 He got me introduced to an SAIC division in Tucson that had some classified 122 contracts. He said, "You want to do business development? Well Gene's going to 123 take you on his staff and you can be a business development staff person and work 124 with the classified programs in Tucson and also in Space Division." He explained the 125 equity system at SAIC and why there was long term benefit.

126 At some time in this oral history discussion, I think you'll probably want me to talk 127 about employee ownership. Let me do it in bits and pieces. At that time, it was the 128 intent of Bob and the board that every key person in the company – and this was 129 broadly speaking, not just some senior executives – should see 25 percent of their 130 annual remuneration in unrealized capital gains based on SAIC stock holdings. That 131 was the goal. I had had the opportunity when I first joined SAIC to participate in the 132 equity, when I went from SDC to SAIC, I was very happy.

133 One of the things that enticed me was the broad bonus program that included 134 equity. Very shortly after I joined the company I got an offer to buy $2,000.00 worth 135 of stock, receive $2,000.00 of vesting stock as a result and then receive options worth 136 at the time $2,000.00. So for the first two years or so I had gotten grants like that. 137 Then shortly before I got this offer from CDC, I got a third offer of this sort. 138 $2,000.00 for a 29-year old in 1978, '79, I was living on the beach still. That was a lot 139 of money.

140 I said, "No, they're going to keep asking me if I want to buy stock until I turn them 141 down." So I said no thank you to that one. Years later, I went back and tried to 142 calculate what the value of that decision was or what I had lost. It was about a half a 143 million dollars in the sense that if I found another $2,000.00 back in '79 when I 144 retired that would have turned into a half a million dollars. Oh well.

145 But back to Bob, his personality, I mean he was funny. He's warm. He's very informal 146 and as I said, disarming relating to the people he's trying to hire, the people he 147 works with. He answered all my questions. Just the exposure to him was important. 148 He talked a bit about the company, about employee ownership, what he was trying 149 to build, what his philosophy was and it was all enough to keep me in the company. 150 That was the last time I had pursued an offer outside of the company. Twenty-eight 151 years later, after 30 years I retired.

152 WEISS: Some of the SAIC pioneers who spoke at Dr. Beyster's Celebration of Life 153 talked about the Beyster Book. Do you have any stories about the Beyster Book?

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 154 IDELL: Well in '86 when I went down to work directly – I guess it was '84 – it was 155 '84 – I went down to work directly for Bob. It was clear that if I put a Beyster Book in 156 my pocket and pulled it out on occasion, that would be deemed a smart thing to do.

157 Bob kept notes. He had on his desk a spiral bound notebook, which I adopted as 158 well for my active listening on phone conversations and in meetings. But the Beyster 159 Book was more for when he left his desk. He always had a handy way to make a note 160 of a name of somebody that he might have met, a contract or a contact or when he 161 promised that he'd do something, a to-do list to follow-up on. It was just something 162 that was ubiquitous in his person. He kept track of an incredible number of people 163 personally in the company, contracts, opportunities, customers. So it was clear that 164 it helped him keep straight what he needed to remember.

165 WEISS: So what does this Beyster Book look like? I understand you still use one 166 today?

167 IDELL: I do. They are spiral bound at the end and perhaps they're chest-pocket size. 168 So it's about two and a half by three and a half inches and you just flip it over to a 169 new page. I still use them today when I travel to keep track of travel expenses, when 170 we have addresses of what museum or when we have theater tickets or which 171 restaurant and what phone number. It just helps me to have ready access when I'm 172 in an unfamiliar place or even a familiar place outside of home of what we're doing 173 next or what bus line or what subway line to take.

174 WEISS: Dr. Beyster convinces you to work for Gene Ray and that part of the 175 company. So you go from where you are in Santa Monica area?

176 IDELL: El Segundo. I stayed in El Segundo for another couple of years. Let's see. So 177 it was '79 where Bob convinced me to stay in the company and I was in El Segundo 178 until September of '84. I worked for Gene on his staff and I was responsible for 179 working across divisions and across groups on some major classified contracts that 180 we had. The customer at the time was based in Los Angeles. So I stayed in L.A.

181 I worked with the Porcello Division based in Tucson and the McPherson Division, 182 which was my old division, based on El Segundo. I worked the vagaries of a larger 183 contract that spanned multiple SAIC divisions. This was fairly unusual at the time 184 where we had a contract big enough to need support from multiple divisions. So I 185 was – my job was, number one, to support the customer and the customer's needs;

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 186 number two, to ensure that SAIC or SAI at the time brought the appropriate 187 technologies and technical support people to bear on the contract no matter where 188 they were in the corporation.

189 Now at this time, every individual division was incentivized to maximize the work 190 that went to their own home organization. At some point, you'll want me to talk 191 about Bob's overarching philosophy of keeping individual local organizations 192 incentivized to do what was best for themselves to grow, keep their entrepreneurial 193 zeal active, reward them fairly for growth that they saw in their own organizations 194 and yet, in some ways contradictorily speaking, keeping those same people 195 incentivized to understand that their long term benefit was for the corporation as a 196 whole to grow. So as a division manager, you wanted to have contracts to feed your 197 people, support your own customers, control your own customers, grow your own 198 business because your annual bonus pool and success in the near term was based on 199 what you kept in-house. At the time, divisions were like $3 to $5 million in annual 200 revenues and anywhere from 20 to 60 people.

201 But on the other hand, overall long-term growth through equity participation was 202 based on the company as a whole succeeding. So I was an early—in the company's 203 history—practitioner of getting organizations that have their own interest in the 204 business to work together and share business for the good both of the customer and 205 of the corporation as a whole. Sometimes that was easy and sometimes not as people 206 struggled to balance their short term incentives of what they control themselves and 207 the longer term incentives of how best to grow a contract and how best to serve a 208 customer that benefitted the corporation as a whole.

209 WEISS: I understand these were classified? Were all your customers aerospace 210 related vessels and satellite?

211 IDELL: Yes, even their existence was classified, but today you can talk about a 212 government agency called the National Reconnaissance Office, which was 213 responsible for reconnaissance satellites. That's probably all I should say. But its 214 existence today is unclassified.

215 WEISS: That's good. So you were there until around '84. Then did you come to San 216 Diego or go to Tucson?

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 217 IDELL: I got more exposure to Bob. I became program manager of a fairly high- 218 visibility support program to this classified customer. Bob had come up for program 219 reviews with the customer and I had brought the customer down to San Diego to 220 talk to Bob. So I interacted with Bob in that regard. We sought the advice of Admiral 221 Bob Inman, who was on the board at the time. Bob Inman suggested to Bob Beyster 222 that they establish a special projects coordinating council that could, to the extent 223 compartmentalization and classification rules allowed, talk to some degree and 224 coordinate our activities across the corporation for what we're doing.

225 We met quarterly and met in a vault, in a secure environment here in San Diego. I 226 got to know Bob Inman. He asked me to be the secretary, if you will, of the council, 227 to bring people and projects to this special projects coordinating council so that Bob 228 Inman and Bob Beyster could make sure the corporation was acting in an 229 appropriate way for these very important customers.

230 WEISS: You were dealing with classified information? I mean, over the years, had 231 you kept some level of active security clearance?

232 IDELL: More so then, and as I transitioned down working for Bob directly – and 233 probably through the end of the '80s, early '90s – but at that point my 234 responsibilities were too diffuse to really require that level of classified access. So I 235 dropped away from that.

236 WEISS: Were you responsible for bringing in colleagues that had been in the 237 military and was that an appeal in your particular division because of having worked 238 with classified material?

239 IDELL: Part of the culture of the company is that everybody in the broadest sense 240 who supports customers would be looking to grow business and to find out what we 241 can do better for our customers. We're also on the lookout – again, everybody's 242 incentivized – to find smart people. Back in the '70s and '80s, we did not recruit at 243 colleges very often because we wanted people with experience. So one of our 244 informal strategies, in the aerospace side of things, was to look at companies like 245 TRW, Hughes Aircraft, Lockheed Martin. These companies would hire people out of 246 college and they'd spend five years and train them and then they would get kind of 247 stuck in a giant organization.

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 248 That's when they were ripe for us to come in and say, "You've been trained. You have 249 some skills. You understand customers. You understand contracts and technologies. 250 [Your knowledge] has matured from scholastic to practical. Come join us and we'll 251 give you the opportunity to build business, to be recognized much more quickly and 252 with many more opportunities to grow than you will see in your large organization."

253 So, whenever we met people, subcontractors, teammates, we were always on the 254 lookout for younger people who had that five years after college to be trained by the 255 bigger aerospace corps and bring them in and give them opportunities as we 256 developed them. Bob was always looking out for the best and the brightest. His view 257 was you grow the company with smart people and you incentivize them to be 258 responsible for their own well-being, for their own customers, to build their own 259 business and be rewarded fairly with equity for doing that.

260 WEISS: So Gene Ray at a certain point breaks off and starts Titan. Was he trying to 261 lure you to Titan and how did that go over with the company and with Dr. Beyster?

262 IDELL: Well I know you've talked to Gene, so I'll let Gene speak for himself.

263 WEISS: I didn't personally.

264 IDELL: [I mean Gene’s been interviewed by the archive initiative.] Gene and Bob 265 had some differences about how the company should grow and the direction the 266 company should take. I was there when the split between Bob and Gene happened, 267 when Gene left. I was an observer. I was not a principal. I would say that there was 268 one event that was contributory. I won't say that this is why Gene left, but it 269 certainly was something that I knew he was bothered by. That had to do with 270 something that I became very intimate with for the last 15 years of my role in the 271 company.

272 Bob believed in every year looking at the corporation and making organizational 273 changes at the margins. He felt that every year conditions change, customer 274 priorities and needs change. Addressing the situation in our company, we need to 275 restructure on an annual basis to be best suited and to address the customers that 276 we have and that we see in front of us and best able to exploit the technologies that 277 we have in-house.

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 278 Now you would say, "Well that sounds like it would throw the company into turmoil 279 on an annual basis," but what he did was do it on the margins. So it's not like the 280 whole company would be get tossed up in the air and rejiggered every year but he 281 did some things every year and it grew to be known as reorg season, everybody 282 would say with a wry smile. I'll get back to Gene in a minute. For 15 years I was 283 responsible for bringing ideas to him. In many situations, I was responsible for 284 affecting change or at least talking to the principles. We can talk more about this 285 later.

286 But back to Gene Ray. Within Gene's system group in the corporation, there was a 287 fellow named John Warner who was an operations manager and John's organization 288 had just won a fairly large, at the time, contract at the National Training Center in 289 Northern California for simulation software and instrumentation for a range that did 290 training exercises for Army [tanks and] units. It was a fairly large systems integration 291 contract. It had a lot of growth potential. So John and his people had a big effort to 292 swallow.

293 As I said, John worked for Gene Ray – and John Warner I think felt at the time that 294 he needed more independence to grow his business and he needed more resources. I 295 mean every step up in the organizational line—the higher step took a bit of the 296 discretionary resources from the lower organizations. So Bob certainly knew John 297 well because, again, Bob doesn't necessarily respect organizational ties. He would go 298 down to the principle people involved whether they were technical people, 299 marketing people, management people and talk to them directly when there was a 300 program as important as the NTC program was.

301 So in conversations, John said, "Hey I can grow this business if I have more 302 discretionary resources. Why don't you move me out from under Gene's 303 organization and set me up as a parallel directly reporting operation?" This of course 304 took away from the resources that Gene had to run his group. I think Gene felt it 305 diminished the importance of what he and his group staff had done in support of 306 getting the NTC contract. It was frankly something he was not pleased with at the 307 time. That happened, I would say, within a year before Gene left the corporation.

308 It was an example where Bob did not believe a senior manager should just rest on 309 their laurels and grow a big organization. For all the time I was with SAIC, we looked 310 for those younger people who had opportunities to build a bigger business and pull

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 311 them out from under already successful senior managers and set them up and 312 incentivize them to grow. Of course those already successful senior managers did 313 not appreciate having the resources and control pulled out from under them.

314 Now ironically, fast forward 20 years, in the 2000s, John Warner had a very large 315 sector at the time. We changed names and the sector was the new name for a group. 316 I had a couple of conversations with John where we wanted to take bits and pieces of 317 his organization out from under him. It was the health care business, centered 318 around a large health care contract, which we wanted to move out from John’s 319 organization. John had gotten a leg-up on his start by being pulled out from under 320 Gene and 15 or 20 years later, Bob pulled big pieces out of John’s organization to 321 encourage the [healthcare] people to grow. We were always balancing it. But Bob 322 was always most interested in the younger Turks who were hungry and trying to 323 build something than people who had made their mark and had established their 324 empires and might be content just to manage.

325 WEISS: You became senior vice president of corporate development in 1988, but the 326 world's changing a lot at that point. We're talking about Glasnost. I assume that 327 many of these contracts had to do with defense, the former Soviet Union.

328 IDELL: Certainly the company was [largely built on national security business]. But 329 let me back up a bit. In '84, Bob recruited me to come down to La Jolla and work for 330 him. He, at the time, was still trying to keep track of all the major new initiatives in 331 the corporation. We had grown beyond just defense certainly at the time. We had 332 health. We had energy. We had environment. We had the kernels of what would 333 later grow and be major lines of business for SAIC.

334 He put it simply, "I need somebody to understand what's important and tell me so I 335 won’t miss anything." At that point the company was a couple hundred million in 336 revenue and he kept, in his little Beyster Book and in his head, track of everything 337 that was important that he wanted to touch. He couldn't do it anymore and he 338 wanted some help. His first task to me was, "Make a list. What are the top business 339 development initiatives that we have ongoing in the company?"

340 At that time, I spent a couple weeks and I called and talked to every senior business 341 leader, every senior business development guy. Introduced myself to those that I 342 didn't know. I was from corporate so at that point, there was always a bit of 343 suspicion of how I was going to use the information and how I could help them. It

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 344 was sensitive at first, but I worked my way into a position of trust with most of the 345 senior people. I put together a 3-page, single-spaced memo with some 25 or 30 major 346 opportunities. I said, "Bob, this is the hot list. This is what's important."

347 He used that as a basis for going out and making his daily calls to people, to business 348 leaders, to business developers, to technology people. As the company grew, that 349 [list] grew into a marketing information system, which had 300 items. It was 350 computer data bases. I had a little staff of IT people and we had administrators 351 around the company who [managed the data]. Ten years later, it was a thick 352 computer printout.

353 My business development role first identified the things that were important. Then 354 as Bob looked for ways to impact, hear about and understand what was going on, I 355 developed a monthly teleconference for him, which we used to call a business 356 acquisition council. I would tee up 6 to 8 major opportunities on the teleconference, 357 get not just the line manager but the key business developer responsible for that 358 business opportunity to speak for 15, 20 minutes to a broad council of leaders, 359 including Bob, and answer questions.

360 Now we had some money in corporate to invest in business development 361 opportunities that were called ‘guidelines.’ It is just an arcane name related to our 362 accounting systems but in effect it was discretionary resources that Bob could pass 363 from corporate to a line organization to help them in a business development 364 pursuit. It was a way we incentivized people to come to the business acquisition 365 councils. It was the focal point for making decisions on allocating corporate 366 resources in support of various business development activities.

367 WEISS: But this was all intra-SAIC, let's say. What did you see as the technological 368 landscape, having seen early Silicon Valley from when you were just in the Air Force 369 and looking around afterwards to when you first met Dr. Beyster here in San Diego 370 to now you are in corporate? I mean what is going on in the technology community 371 in San Diego, the software community? What did you see really happening here or 372 did you really have time to think about that?

373 IDELL: Not as much as others. But major impacts in the mid-'80s were the strategic 374 defense initiative, sensor technology, communications and satellite communications 375 technologies, command and control, and complex systems integration, systems of 376 systems, workstation development, simulation systems for training. Those were all

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 377 technologies that were important that we were involved in and were working with 378 others. Many other local companies were working in these areas as well. I would 379 highlight, General Atomic, as a local example. That’s where Bob came from, [prior 380 to starting SAI], working on nuclear weapons, and weapons effects modeling and 381 analysis.

382 WEISS: Were you competing against General Atomic? Were you competing against 383 – was ViaSat in that level of business at that point and was there anybody else on 384 that technology and software landscape?

385 IDELL: We competed not just here in San Diego but broadly around the country. 386 All the aerospace businesses were involved in one extent or another and the smaller 387 companies as well. There were many SAIC spinoffs. I am not best versed to tell this 388 story but I think in Bob's book there's a list of all of the various companies that were 389 started from people, by people who left SAIC and took their experiences at SAIC and 390 formed technology related companies that to one extent or another were similar to 391 Bob's model. I mean there are 50 or 60 technology concerns that here in San Diego 392 and around the country – like Titan Systems – that resulted from people who got to 393 a point at SAIC and wanted to run their own show and left.

394 WEISS: As Qualcomm came through, certainly the Cornell connection, another 395 huge company on the landscape here. Did you ever have any interest in looking at 396 Qualcomm?

397 IDELL: I had a good friend who came to SAIC who had worked at M/A-COM which 398 was one of the companies that grew into what today is Qualcomm. I didn't pursue 399 opportunities there but I got to know a little bit from – the fellow's name was Nick 400 Del Vecchio – about his background. At that time, I was pretty much consumed with 401 what I was doing at SAIC. I mean I was awfully busy and I was energized.

402 The company was growing. Equity was growing. Bob's view of employee ownership 403 was to manage the growth of the company so that we could see a steady year on year 404 growth of let's say 15 percent in revenues. The idea was that stock price would 405 double every five years. Bob never had the vision of SAIC being kind of a typical 406 startup today of in three to five years you'll go from zero to a billion dollars.

407 Bob was in it for the long haul. Money was one of the least important things for him. 408 He gave a bit of equity away at the very start, but by the time he retired it was less

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 409 than one percent of the company equity. So where did that equity go? It was 410 distributed to the people who he brought into the company, who helped grow the 411 company.

412 To a large extent, SAIC was services based, people based. Frankly, what I'm good at is 413 dealing with people. Working technology, corporate business development issues 414 across organizational lines with customers, dealing with people. I was less interested 415 in product development and understanding what's the next best thing we can build 416 that we can sell hundreds or thousands of or whatever. So naively I would say, at the 417 time and certainly in the '80s and the early '90s I was pretty locked into SAI's view 418 and vision and not so much interested in a company, [like Qualcomm] that was a 419 commercial venture that would have big years and lean years up and down.

420 WEISS: So as I understand, the whole vision for SAIC started off in [technology 421 services]. You mention health care at a certain point. In the mid-'90s they secured a 422 contract to provide computing and technological services for the National Cancer 423 Institute.

424 IDELL: Right.

425 WEISS: This was life sciences. Were you involved at all in that?

426 IDELL: Only in support of the business development pursuit and some of the 427 individuals who were chasing that contract. I noticed in your questions you asked, 428 "Was that our big foray into health care?" In the early '70's we had contracts and I 429 forget whether it was the VA – I believe so but it could have been the NIH – 430 supporting epidemiological studies for the effects of Agent Orange on returning 431 Vietnam veterans.

432 So back in the early and mid-'70s we had people working with health care 433 professionals, with veterans' groups understanding, pulling together data and 434 making sense of epidemiological data. So we had entrees in a health related business 435 where we had MDs on staff back as early as the mid-'70s. There was a long, slow run 436 up to our NIH major contract. We had a reputation. We had people. That was not 437 just something that grew out of whole cloth, so to speak. But no, in terms of 438 personally involved with customers, no. I supported the business development 439 pursuit with resources and peripheral help.

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 440 WEISS: So you talked about being quite busy and maybe not interacting that much 441 in the more general business community here. I understand it was somewhat of a 442 workaholic environment there.

443 IDELL: Bob's view was hire the smartest people you can find. Why was the 444 company going to succeed? He said on many occasions early on, "Because I'm going 445 to work harder than any of my peers at other companies." He expected people 446 around him to work hard as well. Now I have to tell you a funny story, a Beyster 447 story.

448 When he recruited me to come down – this was '84. I went sailing with him. He was 449 talking about what he wanted in the way of help. He said, "You know, Jim, I have to 450 tell you this company is the most important thing in my life and I want the people 451 around me – I want the company to be the most important thing in their lives as 452 well." I looked at him and I said, "Bob, I can't do that. I've got two young sons who 453 moved down here. I get involved in Little League. I get involved in this and that. It 454 can't be the most important thing in my life." He looks at me. He kind of glares at 455 me for a minute. He says, "Well you can lie to me at least, can't you?" I go, "Bob, fair 456 enough."

457 Years later, when Bob had moved and bought the facility on Cave Street in La Jolla, 458 he had maybe a dozen people on his senior staff and various folks based in Cave 459 Street. Bob worked a 12-hour day. He got to work, made phone calls on his way to 460 work. A lot of times you'd find him in the parking lot back of the Cave Street 461 building finishing up a phone call. He worked 12-hour days, 6:00 to 6:00 pretty much 462 every day. But he always ran mid-day. He worked Saturdays from 6:00 or 7:00 till 463 lunch at 2:00. He had a group of folks, senior staff that worked with him on 464 Saturdays.

465 Typically, they'd go for a run with him and then eat lunch. I never was part of that 466 group. I didn't work Saturdays. At one point, one day, somebody said, "How come 467 Idell doesn't work Saturdays?" He says, "Idell? Oh he doesn't work Saturdays." Bob 468 said that because from the very start I had kind of laid the groundwork. So his 469 expectations were such that, "Of course Idell doesn't work Saturdays. I mean he told 470 me."

471 It's like he said, "What are you talking about?" The unstated inference from the 472 people around him was, "Why am I working Saturdays?" Because they didn't tell him

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 473 they couldn't work Saturdays. I mean Bob was not going to look after your personal 474 life, but if you told him, he [would respect it]. He could treat people as individuals. 475 I won't say that he took advantage of people but people who didn't speak up and 476 kind of declare their boundaries sometimes got overworked.

477 Take vacations. I always took two to three weeks off every year. I would tell Bob 478 when I would be gone. He'd grumble a little bit. Everyone would say, "How did you 479 get three weeks off?" I didn't get three weeks off; I took three weeks off. It's like, 480 "Okay, Idell's gone."

481 So the best way to deal with him was kind of set your own boundaries, tell him what 482 you would do and what you wouldn't do and then work like the dickens to perform 483 within those constraints. He wasn't going to look out for you though. He wasn't 484 going to ask you, "Are you working too hard? Are you working too late? Isn't it time 485 to go home?"

486 You were expected to set your own boundaries and live your own life. I never didn't 487 tell him that the company was the most thing in my life. I kept to his early 488 statement of, "You can lie to me."

489 WEISS: You mentioned going sailing with him originally. Were you ever part of the 490 sailing group in the America's Cup venture?

491 IDELL: Well I certainly sailed a good bit with him especially in the early days. I got 492 involved with some of the initial briefings about decision making of how we should 493 get involved, after the loss of the America's Cup in I think it was '83 and I had been 494 in Newport with the group that was following the races there. We looked at our 495 technologies that could support the '87 rematch – not rematch but the '87 regatta to 496 win back the Cup. I was in on some of the early discussions that we had internally of 497 what we could do in terms of hull design and simulation of results, looking at 498 different hull designs and especially different weather, wave and wind conditions, 499 how different design concepts would work.

500 We had been doing hydrodynamic modeling for the Navy and so it was an offshoot 501 of this existing technology that led Bob to say, "Hey, I think we can help Dennis 502 Connor. I think we can help the America's Cup campaign if we look to apply what we 503 do know to the America's Cup racing platform."

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 504 So once that decision was made to invest both in our own people to give them the 505 time and resources to adapt hydrodynamic modeling from submersibles, Navy 506 submersibles to America's Cup hull and keel design, I was out of it after that. I 507 certainly [followed our activity]. I did not go down at Perth, Australia in ’87. There 508 was a crowd of SAIC-ers that did go down there to see the races. So I was involved 509 only in the initial phases and in some of the initial discussions but once a decision 510 had been made I was off on other things.

511 WEISS: So you mentioned having your own life outside of the company. SAIC made 512 some efforts to get involved in charitable organizations. Did you ever try to pull 513 them into community organizations of your world?

514 IDELL: While I was with the company, I certainly was involved in discussions 515 related to decisions about where to invest charitable money, and was involved in 516 some of the formative meetings of the FED, Foundation for Enterprise Development, 517 but I cannot say that I was a principle. I was there. I was involved. But once things 518 got started, [I was off on other things]. Since I left [the company], when I retired in 519 2007, to be honest, my interests grew away from technology and business.

520 When I went to college, I was an engineering major. I studied engineering, math, 521 science. I had the technology theme throughout my career. When I retired, it was 522 my time to go back and be involved with the humanities subjects that I’d missed. My 523 wife is an English major who was a high school teacher and then a docent at San 524 Diego Museum of Art and Timken Museum of Art.

525 Interests such as reading, art, history, music, opera, symphony, taking piano lessons, 526 singing in choir, supporting my Unitarian Universalist church that I belong to, 527 traveling and now grandkids fill up my life. I haven't followed up with either the 528 technology or business interests that characterized my career. When I first retired I 529 thought that I could get involved through CONNECT or through other means as a 530 mentor for technology companies but it just didn't work out that way. I found myself 531 most drawn to the humanities.

532 WEISS: You decide to remain with SAIC and you retired, you said, in 2007. Several 533 years before, in 2004, Dr. Beyster had retired. Then there was the IPO. Can you tell 534 me how it affected you? You were still an employee at that time and could observe 535 the effect of these events on the company morale, the environment and company 536 culture.

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 537 IDELL: Well it's complicated. Certainly the challenges that SAIC had to face as we 538 grew, the more successful we were, the larger we grew, the harder it was to continue 539 that growth. The model that Bob had developed worked great for the first 25 years 540 but it became harder as we grew. We had to marshal our forces, so to speak, to go 541 after larger and larger contracts to make a bigger impact on the company's top line 542 and bottom line growth. To do that, we needed larger organizations. We needed 543 more people who were [engineers], coders, systems integrators, people [to work on 544 the larger contracts] and fewer, as a percentage, of key technologists, program 545 managers, business developers, line managers. We needed bigger staffs to do these 546 bigger contracts.

547 So the percentage of people that were touched by and incentivized by the equity 548 participation necessarily shrank as a percentage [of the employee population as a 549 whole]. It still was broad. It still was a lot but we started having the challenges of the 550 major aerospace corporations that we successfully competed against 20 years before 551 for people and contracts.

552 There were also challenges with respect to the type of work we did. We were broadly 553 diverse in our support for customer communities and we would have organizations 554 in the company who were providing system engineering and technical support to a 555 customer agency who was letting a big system engineering contract. We had another 556 piece of the company that wanted to compete for that big system integration prize 557 but who might have a conflict of interest with the small group that was doing the 558 support to the customer program office. So we had these situations where in some 559 cases we had to decline contracts and in some cases we had to pass up major 560 opportunities.

561 In some cases, we had to walk a narrow line between the two. This meant we had to 562 have more control, if you will, from corporate for the businesses we were in. We 563 used the annual reorganization to prune and coalesce and bring together like 564 businesses so that there would be fewer of these disparate parts of the company 565 going after similar customers. But I think as the company grew, it was evident that it 566 was harder and harder to have this decentralized focus.

567 The other issue was that Bob was aging. The board was concerned about his ability 568 to continue to manage the company as he was doing. There were a couple, three, 569 succession plans that came on the horizon that just didn't work out for one reason or

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 570 another. The board finally stepped in and insisted that there be a firm date for 571 succession and a search for a new CEO. I would be disingenuous if I told you that 572 Bob was fully on board with this.

573 Now I was a bit in the middle because I certainly had worked directly for Bob from 574 '84 till – what was this – 2003, 2004, somewhere along that line. But I was also 575 involved with board members who were looking at ways to implement change. I was 576 not the only one but I was one of the few people who got involved in negotiations 577 between individual board members, factions of board members and Bob in terms of 578 how to go about a transition.

579 When Ken Dahlberg was hired to be a successor CEO, he kept me around to help 580 with the transition. I suspect I could have stayed working for the company as long 581 as I wanted. But my real value to him was in the first year to 18 months because he 582 wanted to restructure the corporation to give a more significant role to the senior 583 line managers and more of a traditional pyramid-shaped organization.

584 At the time I was kind of the knowledge base, knew all the people, knew all the 585 businesses, who did what. I helped him restructure and look at how he could 586 consolidate and get fewer, larger organizations lined up. I did help him do that for 18 587 months to 2 years after he came on board. Once that reorganization was completed, 588 his style of management was such that my role was significantly decreased. That led 589 to the period when we went public.

590 As a longtime SAIC-er, going public was a big deal. I understood why we were doing 591 it – to create equity, liquidity and also because of the size of the corporation. The 592 challenge of trying to get an external assessor to quarterly help the board set a price, 593 I mean that was just becoming unwieldy. Others can speak better to this. Once we 594 went public and because my role at that time wasn't as vital or as important and I 595 didn't see a new role that I wanted to pick up, I thought that this would be a good 596 time to leave and retire. I was lucky enough to be able to do this because of the 597 equity that I had built up as a long-term employee. I was comfortably situated where 598 I could make that transition. So in 2007, when I was 58, I left the company and have 599 been thrilled to be retired ever since, to be quite honest.

600 WEISS: So was that the feeling among many of the people throughout the 601 company?

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 602 IDELL: You know, there was an old-timer/new-timer kind of thing. Many of the old 603 timers were unhappy when we went public. They were unhappy when Bob left 604 because Bob was not happy leaving. We all were very thankful for him, for what he 605 had done for the company, for what he had built, for the person he was. So it was 606 not a happy time for those who knew him. I'm not talking about 20. I'm talking 607 about 2,000, 3,000 old-timers. I mean there were lots of people that Bob had brought 608 into his personal relationship web that really had some significant interaction with 609 him on a regular basis.

610 His capacity for reaching out and knowing the people who worked in his company 611 was huge. So the people who had been around a long time, I think they were 612 disheartened and certainly didn't appreciate the change. Many of them understood, 613 but it just wasn't the same excitement. We had become a big company and many of 614 us joined SAIC because we didn't want to work for big companies. But there was 615 plenty of newer people, in the 10 to 15-year range for whom the challenges were still 616 there. The excitement was still there and they believed probably more than the old- 617 timers that this was the way to go. So there's not a uniform answer, but if you want 618 kind of rough view, the longer you'd been at SAIC perhaps the less you were 619 interested in the new vision of the company.

620 WEISS: In terms of the image of the company when it went public, you had been 621 involved in some public relations and marketing. Did you have to get involved at all 622 in explaining what the company was doing and why? How did that all play out?

623 IDELL: At the time we were going public, that was a very controlled message and 624 had to be because of the SEC regulations. I was involved in helping working with our 625 team crafting that message. But in terms of public statements surrounding and 626 leading up to the IPO, that was a very controlled thing. What we said to customers 627 was scripted.

628 IDELL: I did speak internally. I spent a lot of time talking to people within the 629 company about the whys and the wherefores and what management was thinking. 630 At this time, however, there were constraints about what could be said internally as 631 well.

632 WEISS: Did you travel to many of the SAIC sites in the U.S. and internationally?

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 633 IDELL: Yes, in the U.S. I never took a business trip abroad with SAIC, but around 634 the country absolutely. I visited just about all of the major office – places where we 635 might have 75 to 100 people or more – to talk to business leaders, talk about business 636 development opportunities. For several years, I also traveled with Bob.

637 WEISS: What was it like supporting him if he's doing a presentation or were you 638 doing the presentation? Was he sitting there making notes?

639 IDELL: Well certainly I gave talks. Bob was more one on one or one on a few. When 640 he had a "presentation" to give, it was usually to a customer where there was an SAIC 641 person who was key to that customer that would be with Bob. I was there more 642 when it was informal stuff. For both recruits and customers, I would go with Bob and 643 just give him a second pair of ears to remind him of what was said, what he promised 644 and to follow-up things that came from the meetings either with customers or with 645 recruits.

646 WEISS: You talked about early on you were trying to build the workforce from 647 people that had been at TRW and some of the other companies that had about five 648 years in and would come ready to work for your company. Did this change and as 649 San Diego evolved? Were you trying to then find ways or not you personally but 650 somehow through people in your company to interface with UC San Diego, with San 651 Diego State to draw in engineers, marketing people, science people?

652 IDELL: Some of our initial efforts at corporate recruiting when we grew to the point 653 where we realized that entry level people were important were directed at SDSU and 654 UCSD, certainly. In the local [technology] community, we were always trying to hire 655 smart people from the other San Diego based companies. Bob was not the last 656 person to come over from GA to SAIC, for instance. I was not personally involved in 657 the corporate recruiting, or in on-campus initiatives. But we really in effect learned 658 about what it would take to do corporate recruiting broadly using our experience 659 with the local universities.

660 WEISS: So what did it take here in San Diego? Many people went to the Silicon 661 Valley or off to other places but especially Silicon Valley. What did it take to keep 662 people here in San Diego?

663 IDELL: I think the people who went to Silicon Valley, it depends on whether it was 664 before or after the Internet bubble burst in the 2000s. The people who would be

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 665 excited about going to Silicon Valley were really looking for the rockets, the 666 companies that could take off – the companies that could get big in a hurry. We still 667 had that slow but steady mantra. So what appealed? It was really more the type of 668 personality that you had whether slow but steady was what you wanted or the 669 exciting chance at a skyrocket.

670 People are different. People break down in different ways. In terms of more senior 671 level people, Bob could pull people in. For instance, I came here in '84 I would never 672 leave San Diego. So there's another slice of folks that would say, "The notion of going 673 to the Bay area, for instance, sounds interesting but really I'd just as soon stay here." 674 So there’s a San Diego bias. We exploited people who wanted to be around smart 675 people, who were slow and steady, and who wanted to stay in San Diego. Is that fair?

676 WEISS: In the early days when the company was founded in 1969, there was mainly 677 military. There was a little bit of technology. How has this whole landscape evolved 678 now? I know SAIC has recently since 2013 done a split and has the Washington 679 presence.

680 IDELL: Right.

681 WEISS: Within a few months after Dr. Beyster started the company it had to have a 682 Washington, D.C. presence. Tell me about that whole Washington, D.C. presence 683 because you manage so many contracts that were federally or military, large military 684 contracts.

685 IDELL: Yes. Bob wanted to live in San Diego. He built his home in La Jolla Farms in 686 the late '50s. This is where he was going to start his company. We did have the 687 benefit of a substantial Navy customer that we built up over the years. When I left 688 the company in 2007, 80 percent of our business was still to the federal government.

689 The customers are in Washington. The ultimate customers are. It was very clear that 690 we needed people in Washington to interact with federal customers. There were a 691 much more diverse set of customers in the Washington area. We also had very early 692 operations in Huntsville, Alabama, Dayton, Ohio, Omaha. Our idea was always to 693 place an SAIC organization close to a customer.

694 We wanted the customer to be able to walk across the street or down the road to see 695 their project officer or program manager. Not get on an airplane. So we were quick

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 696 to establish local offices. Certainly Washington was an obvious one. Bob's initial 697 contracts for the Defense Nuclear Agency were in Washington and he needed 698 somebody sitting there who could run over and talk to them on a heartbeat's notice. 699 Because of the diversity of customers in the greater Washington area, that quickly 700 became our largest location.

701 WEISS: On the board, there were some very high-ranking people in the U.S. military 702 that came aboard with SAIC for periods of time. Could you talk about interacting 703 with them and did that help since you did have a military background?

704 IDELL: We recruited from the government. You could say that I had four years in 705 the Air Force and I had a way station at SDC but in effect, I have a government 706 service background. For people who had served, it was a natural to join a company 707 that was technology based but focused largely on serving the federal government. 708 Eighty percent of our business. We diversified over the years, but we've never really 709 had the character in my tenure to be other than a largely federal support entity.

710 There was a significant belief in the importance of federal service, importance of 711 federal government, importance of serving the country that did appeal to our 712 customers both in the way we comported our business, trying to be in their best 713 interests and also it was appealing for people leaving the government who are 714 looking for expanded opportunities within the private sector. We certainly hired 715 from the government being careful that people would work on things they weren't 716 influential on while they were in the government but work on other things. In terms 717 of our senior board members, we've had a number of former secretary of defenses on 718 our board; Mel Laird, Bill Perry, Bob Gates. We did important work.

719 We supported important agencies, helped solve important problems. They weren't 720 always the biggest, splashiest or well-publicized activities that the company did and 721 they weren't all stuff that we could tout. But we were recognized at senior levels of 722 government. Bob sought out the advice and support and help of senior leadership 723 like the Bob Inmans, the Mel Lairds, the Bill Perrys, the Harold Browns, and others 724 that I'm not remembering, but several others, not just one or two. They would help 725 guide us, help provide some perspective from a strategic standpoint of what's going 726 to be important tomorrow. I mean we were always looking for what's next, where to 727 hire people, where to place people, what's important, where are we going. Those

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 728 senior people would have the perspective of understanding what a broader vision of 729 the future.

730 WEISS: SAIC for many years did not have a huge name recognition in San Diego 731 among emerging businesses, but was a huge company. How did that whole culture 732 evolve and if you were involved in marketing at all, how did you deal with that?

733 IDELL: Bob did not believe in touting or flouting our existence or our name. It just 734 wasn't in his personality. For decades, the company reflected that personality. We 735 were low-key. We did not advertise. I mean we do now. We did after the turn of the 736 21st century.

737 But we did not advertise. We did not tout our existence. We did not want to make 738 ourselves a target for our competitors. I mean they knew who we were but we didn't 739 want to push ourselves in that competitive landscape. We wanted to build our 740 business through relationships, through having smart people who understand what 741 customers' problems needed to be solved and how to best solve them.

742 We built our business based on relationships and customer interactions. It was 743 business development, very little of the classic marketing, positioning, branding. We 744 had a couple of attempts at developing a brand. We had some consultants come in 745 and talk about what would our brand be, how we could project that brand, but it 746 never really took hold in the core company. When we bought Bellcore in the mid- 747 '90s, they were a commercial business trying to expand beyond their niche as a 748 captive software R&D house of AT&T before divestiture. We got involved in helping 749 them with that branding but it never caught on in the company as a whole.

750 Clearly, if you are a public company you have to tout the company, not so much who 751 you are, what you can do for customers or to impress customers but rather you need 752 to tout the company to the security analysts and the people who make buy/sell 753 recommendations for public stock. If you're on the public market, it's appropriate to 754 look out and project yourself. But since we weren't public, we had no reason to do 755 that. The customers who knew us, knew us. And we weren't shy about going in and 756 introducing ourselves to the ones who did know us.

757 WEISS: Well Dr. Beyster in the SAIC Solution, his book, he quoted you in terms of 758 the yearly reorganization saying that you preferred “evolutionary rather than 759 revolutionary changes that would have left our people feeling whipsawed and too

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 760 internally focused.” So what did that mean? What would have somebody seen as a 761 revolutionary change versus an evolutionary change?

762 IDELL: Ken Dahlberg made a revolutionary change in the company when he came 763 in, [changing the character of the organization]. What I meant by an evolutionary 764 change is where we made some changes every year, [consistent with the existing 765 organizational philosophy, but never affecting more than 10 to 15 per cent of the 766 people]. People knew that. I would show up at a certain time of year in a sector 767 manager's office and he'd say, "What are you going to do to me this year? What are 768 you going to take from me?"

769 They knew the process. If you only did it on the margins, affecting, say, five to ten 770 percent [of the business], and you did it every year so that change was relentless, but 771 largely pruning and trimming and if no one was a loser every year and no one was a 772 big loser any year, the changes were viewed as evolutionary. In a reorg there's 773 always people who feel better afterwards and there are people who feel not so good. 774 The idea was you didn't want to make senior management feel like they got their 775 apple cart overturned.

776 We wanted to do it continually such that people understood that this was how we 777 worked but we didn't want to upset people so much that they were either confused 778 or so upset that they would leave. With some of the more senior people it was a 779 balancing act. I got thrown into the situation where I would go in and tell a very 780 senior guy what we were planning on doing and a couple of times they'd get very 781 upset and then go back to Beyster.

782 Of course before they saw Bob, I would say, "Okay, here is what he was upset about, 783 here's what he'll give on, here's where he'll draw the line." The guy would come in all 784 upset to Bob and Bob would say, "Oh Idell got that all wrong. He was going out on a 785 limb. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Come talk to me."

786 Of course, he would use what I'd tell him to negotiate the final deal. But the idea – 787 we didn't want people feeling threatened. We want them to feel accustomed to a 788 process that continually changed and evolved our organizational structure so that 789 our technologies would be best focused towards customer needs without them 790 feeling like they've built something for nothing.

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 791 WEISS: So in the non-classified projects that you brought in or managed over the 792 years, are there any that you're particularly proud of as you look back? If this is an 793 inappropriate question, that's fine.

794 IDELL: Oh sure. Bob had an interest in strategic weapons, strategic weapons 795 employment. That grew out of his early work in nuclear technology and nuclear 796 weapons effects. He was well known in the strategic community. He served on a 797 strategic advisory council advising Air Force Strategic Air Command and Strategic 798 Forces. He was a technical advisor. He kept active in that I think through the end of 799 his career.

800 So there were two different support contracts for [strategic forces customers] that 801 were important to Bob and the line units. There was one to the Navy strategic 802 systems program office back in Washington that the line organization that was 803 following that business was not going to bid. There was two weeks left before 804 proposals were due. Bob was furious. "What do you mean they're not going to bid?"

805 I told him this wasn't a big dollar contract but it was in his interest area and it had a 806 lot of growth potential. So he pointed his finger at me and started stabbing me in the 807 chest and said, "Make it happen. Go win that contract." So I went and sat down with 808 the group manager and said, "Look, here's the deal. We're going to bid this. I know 809 you made the decision not to but I come with resources and a mandate."

810 We assembled a team and put together a proposal. I led that effort and we won. 811 There was a second example pretty similar to that of one at Omaha for a support 812 contract for the Strategic Air Command where Bob asked me to go and be 813 responsible for red team review of the proposal. Two weeks out I said, "It's a loser, 814 Bob."

815 I was supposed to fly back with him to Washington. He said, "You stay here and win 816 it." So I stayed there and kind of pushed aside the proposal managers, called in 817 people I knew from around the country and said, "It's important; come," and helped 818 put together the cost proposal and made sure we were competitive. So those were 819 examples when I was working for Bob that were important.

820 WEISS: How about SPAWAR here and the Navy? I mean what kind of relationship 821 did you maintain here?

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 822 IDELL: Me personally, I was more blue suit Air Force than Navy. I met Navy 823 customers but I was not directly involved. I certainly interacted with our 824 organizations that interacted with NOSC, Navy Ocean Systems Command, then 825 SPAWAR. But no, I had more of an Air Force experience base. In terms of the 826 customers I interacted with, it was more in the Air Force and classified community 827 than the Navy. Navy was crucial here to keeping a critical mass of SAIC people 828 locally.

829 Bob wanted to stay in San Diego. He did not want to move to Washington. He was 830 comfortable going once or twice a month to Washington but his home was here. 831 Here was where the company was going to be managed from. So we worked hard to 832 keep a significant technical presence here in San Diego. The Navy support work had 833 the bulk of our technical people locally.

834 Other major programs supported locally were the National Training Center range 835 activity that we had for many years. When we won the Comprehensive Health Care 836 System for the automation of the VA health information systems, we had a good 837 number of technical folks here on that, as well. Then we had lots of technology 838 related smaller businesses that were led by people that wanted to live in San Diego. 839 When Ken Dahlberg came on board, and certainly when he was replaced, there was 840 no longer a personal imperative to keep our headquarters here. Certainly to outside 841 eyes, looking at how the population in the greater Washington area expanded and 842 the limits on the number of customers and the growth opportunities here in San 843 Diego, it was clear that as long as the company was supporting the federal 844 government that our headquarters should be back East.

845 WEISS: So the company physically split. Now there's Leidos – is it Leidos?

846 IDELL: I think so.

847 WEISS: Then SAIC. So I know this was 2013. You've been out of the company for a 848 while. What was your understanding? Do you stay in touch with former SAIC 849 colleagues?

850 IDELL: To be honest, after the IPO when I retired, I divested myself of the SAIC 851 stock. I no longer had insight into how the company was doing and my interests in 852 retirement pulled me away. Now there's a group of former SAIC employees that I see 853 but it's because we're all Padre fans. So we see each other at the ballpark. But no, I

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 854 have not – I could not give you even an uninformed opinion about Leidos and the 855 split.

856 WEISS: Are there any other SAIC stories or anything about Dr. Beyster you just 857 want to add because we're pretty well, yeah, wrapping unless there's something else 858 important that you want to contribute.

859 IDELL: There’s one thing I think is important. You might ask how did Bob, running 860 a broadly decentralized organization incentivizing people at very low levels to build 861 business, to gain equity, to run their own small businesses, how did he keep the 862 company together? One of the things that Bob instituted very early was quarterly 863 pre-board dinners.

864 The board met four times a year. So we would have a dinner and invite senior people 865 to that dinner to interact and mix with board members both to educate the board 866 members about what we're doing and give people who were important in the 867 company some visibility with the board members. So that was in the '70s. That grew 868 into what became meetings weeks where four times a year we'd pull people from 869 around the country together in the '90s and 2000s.

870 There would be like 1,000 people coming for a series, 2, 3, 4 days of technology 871 focused meetings, 2 or 3 parallel tracks, business development meetings culminating 872 in a Thursday morning management council where Bob and senior leaders would 873 speak. I used to give business development summaries at each management council 874 and other senior leaders would speak to up to 1,000 people about the state of the 875 company. Then we had a big dinner that night, the pre-board dinner. From what 876 used to be back in the '70s maybe 40 or 50 people, now would be several hundreds. 877 Board members would still attend and interact with people from around the 878 company.

879 This was an important way to pull people together. The meetings weeks served the 880 larger purpose of cross-pollinating technologies, business development interests and 881 also to give this disparate group of people an understanding that their real future is 882 based on the long term goal of keeping the company strong, keeping the company 883 solid and growing equity. The company's succeeding as a whole was important to 884 them in the long term while their short term priorities were to gain contracts to 885 support themselves and their staff.

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 886 The other thing I'd like to say about Bob is he had an offbeat sense of humor. He was 887 a very serious guy. He was capable of getting angry at people, at times. I've been 888 yelled at plenty of times, but the thing I learned early on that Bob appreciated was 889 for you to look him in the eyes and tell him, "Bob, I screwed up. That's on me." Then 890 he wouldn't know what to say.

891 Then you’d leave and it would be good to get back in front of him within 24 hours on 892 some unrelated matter, tell him something and act like nothing had happened. It 893 would totally disarm him. He would be able to vent his anger, he would able to give 894 you the message and then it would be over. He respected people who took 895 responsibility for their actions as opposed to evading, giving excuses or putting the 896 blame on somebody else. If you acted like, "Okay, Bob, you yelled at me but you're 897 not going to hurt my feelings and we've still got a business to build," then he could 898 rely on you to be there, be supportive and if he got angry at you, not be intimidated.

899 Back to his sense of humor. When I left the El Segundo office in '84 and came down 900 to La Jolla, my coworkers put together a prank video where they went around to 901 people in the office and said, "Well what do you remember about Idell," or, "What 902 do you want to say to him." Everybody in the video had Groucho glasses on, you 903 know the funny nose with moustache and big glasses. They would say their thing but 904 they'd have on Groucho glasses. Well the guy who did the video came down to La 905 Jolla before I got there. This was when I was kind of in the transition.

906 He got Bob to wear a pair of Groucho glasses and speak to the video camera. "Why 907 did you bring this guy down? What are your hopes?" So here's Bob giving rational 908 answers except he's got Groucho glasses on. So they made me a transparency slide 909 from the video. I probably am the only person who has an image of Bob with 910 Groucho glasses on. So that's an example of his sense of humor.

911 He had a nose for people who were nervous or uncertain about their thing and he 912 would push at you if he sensed that you weren't quite sure of what you were saying. 913 But on the other hand, if you acted like you knew or believed in what you were 914 doing, if you were prepared you could get away with a lot. Every time I got up and 915 talked, gave a business development report, all of those management councils, 916 probably 70 in my career, 4 a year, I always told a bad joke. It was expected. My 917 friends would tease me mercilessly if I didn't say something funny.

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016 918 I've got many fond recollections of my uncertain humor looking out on this crowd of 919 500 to 700 people and seeing Bob at the head table with his head in his hands 920 shaking his head side to side. But he understood it. Anyway, it was part of the 921 culture. He could take a joke. He could tell a joke. So I wanted to get that in.

922 WEISS: Well thank you so much Mr. Idell. It's been really interesting to hear about 923 your perspectives on the company, your career journey and looking back over the 924 years and your close working relationship with Dr. Beyster because that really helps 925 us to understand a little bit more of his personality and his commitment as well as 926 the way that the management team was evolving over the years.

927 IDELL: Well glad to be of help.

928 WEISS: Okay.

929 END INTERVIEW

Interview conducted by Helen Weiss on November 30, 2016

930

Recommended Citation:

Idell, James. Interview conducted by Helen Weiss, November 30, 2016. The San Diego Technology Archive (SDTA), UC San Diego Library, La Jolla, CA.

The San Diego Technology Archive (SDTA), an initiative of the UC San Diego Library, documents the history, formation, and evolution of the companies that formed the San Diego region’s high-tech cluster, beginning in 1965. The SDTA captures the vision, strategic thinking, and recollections of key technology and business founders, entrepreneurs, academics, venture capitalists, early employees, and service providers, many of whom figured prominently in the development of San Diego’s dynamic technology cluster. As these individuals articulate and comment on their contributions, innovations, and entrepreneurial trajectories, a rich living history emerges about the extraordinarily synergistic academic and commercial collaborations that distinguish the San Diego technology community.